• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

This was the sound bite that everyone had been waiting for. Eisenhower’s dismissive “one small ball” would grace hundreds of headlines in the next day’s newspapers, reinforcing the impression that the president of the United States was at a loss as to why his nation was so traumatized. Pleased, the reporters pressed on. “Mr. President,” the Chicago Tribune correspondent queried, smelling blood, “considering what we know about Russia’s progress in the field of missiles, are you satisfied with our own progress in that field, or do you feel there have been unnecessary delays in our development of missiles?”

This was precisely the type of loaded question that Richard Nixon had predicted during the NSC meeting two years before, when he had argued with Quarles that the administration had to be seen as doing everything in its power to move forward with the new weapons systems. Eisenhower had not attended that meeting, and now he seemed hesitant. “I can’t say there has been unnecessary delay. I know that from time to time I came here and got into the thing earnestly,” the president started to say, but then abruptly changed tack. “We have done everything I can think of . . . I can say this: I wish we were further ahead and knew more as to the accuracy and to the erosion and to the heat resistant qualities of metals and all the other things we have to know about. I wish we knew more about it at this moment.”

“Is it a correct interpretation of what you said about your satisfaction with the missile program as separate from the satellite program,” the Washington Post reporter followed up, “that you have no plans to take any steps to combine the various government units which are involved in this program and which give certainly the public appearance of a great deal of service rivalry, with some reason to feel that this is why we seem to be lagging behind the Soviets?”

“First of all, I didn’t say I was satisfied,” Eisenhower replied testily. “I said I don’t know what we could have done better.”

More probing questions followed in the same cutthroat vein. Why did Charlie Wilson, the day before, on his last day in office, say he doubted the Soviet Union had an ICBM? Did the sudden cancellation of a state visit by Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov have anything to with Sputnik? Was it true that the army was being prevented from launching a satellite immediately? Would the United States launch a satellite as heavy as Sputnik?

Finally, NBC’s Hazel Markel cut to the chase: “Mr. President, in light of the great faith which the American people have in your military knowledge and leadership, are you saying at this time that with the Russian satellite whirling about the world, you are not more concerned nor overly concerned about our nation’s security?”

Eisenhower’s measured response delved into the difficulties of missile accuracy and the still relatively primitive state of guidance systems. But the details were lost on the journalists. His answer would be pared down on the evening news to a single flippant sentence fragment: “Not one iota.”

• • •

If the president’s news conference had been intended to pacify the press, it had the opposite effect. Instead of reassuring the public with his trademark calm and commanding demeanor, Ike’s performance was judged to have been too remote, too divorced from the anxiety sweeping the nation. “A fumbling apologia,” snipped one critic. “A Crisis in Leadership,” declared Time, noting that American voters wanted a strong leader, unfazed by crisis. But they also needed someone to understand and address their fears. By dismissing Sputnik as “a small ball” without military implications, the man Americans trusted most to defend them seemed oblivious to the danger that millions now saw lurking in the night sky. Ike was correct that in itself the Soviet satellite posed no danger, but he failed to acknowledge that it represented a potential threat. Instead of projecting confidence, he was accused of being out of touch with reality, asleep